Ahmet Davutoglu dissolves his Future Party and steps back from party politics

Ahmet Davutoglu, Turkiye's former prime minister and foreign minister, announced in a statement posted on X that he is dissolving his Future Party and stepping back from party politics. He cited the country's "dirty political atmosphere" and said: "This is not a decision to surrender, but a decision to distance myself morally. It does not mean giving up politics; it is a call to everyone to rethink politics." The report appeared in the Saturday 1 August 2026 (10 Mordad 1405) edition of the newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad, citing a report by Ragip Soylu for Middle East Eye.

Davutoglu warned that the introduction of the executive presidential system in 2018 had destroyed the system of checks and balances and accelerated authoritarianism. He founded the Future Party in 2019, but it won just 0.11 percent of the vote in the 2024 local elections. His decision to join the opposition Table of Six alliance and back Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the 2023 presidential election weakened his standing among conservative voters, although that alliance won the party 10 parliamentary seats. The party now has four members of parliament.

According to the same report, the party faced financial difficulties, and political sources in Ankara said last year that Davutoglu had held talks on merging the Future Party with the ruling AK Party. Those talks collapsed after Recep Tayyip Erdogan objected to including Davutoglu and his ally Selcuk Ozdag. Davutoglu is known as the architect of the "zero problems with neighbours" foreign policy.